We previously blogged (here) Ian Ayres’ New York Times op-ed which argued that casebook authors have a conflict of interest in assigning their book in their classes. Aeon J. Skoble and Eugene Volokh disagreed and saw no conflict, but in one of the comments to Eugene’s post, Al Brophy noted:

I teach at a state school and any time we want to assign our own material, we have to make arrangements with our publisher to sell the materials to the bookstore at their cost (so that we don’t receive any royalties). The state ethics commission has ruled that assigning books for which we’ll receive royalties is abuse of our position of authority. I would have suspected that most states would have similar rules. And even if they don’t, I would think that giving up royalties (which as Professor Volokh points out are pretty small anyway) would be a good gesture towards our students.

Tung Yin notes that this is the case in Iowa under this rule:

Faculty members should not profit financially from recommending or requiring the purchase of course materials by their students. Faculty members who would otherwise receive royalties or other remuneration from the purchase of books or materials which they recommend or require in courses they teach should either refund the money to the students or make other arrangements to avoid profiting from their students’ use of the materials (such as transferring it to the University or one of its units, or to The University of Iowa Foundation).

Do other universities have similar rules?